has Invocation tempest of air at character creation, but invocations are not listed as techniques available. What's up?

They can use invocations. Everything else confirms it - flavour text, the sidebar, the contents of their curriculum.

Were thinking shuji should be invocations

Some specific Techniques are available to a character even if the Technique Category is not. This is usually marked with a small diamond symbol, and it means that the character can only take these Techniques from the Category via the special 'diamond' option.

Any character can use any Technique, regardless of availability. If a Bushi can get their hands on some Invocation somehow, then they can fire it away no problem.

It might be they're restricted to the ones in their curriculum. Make sure to grab them while you can.

4 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Some specific Techniques are available to a character even if the Technique Category is not. This is usually marked with a small diamond symbol, and it means that the character can only take these Techniques from the Category via the special 'diamond' option.

Any character can use any Technique, regardless of availability. If a Bushi can get their hands on some Invocation somehow, then they can fire it away no problem.

So would ToA be the only invocation they can get?

Just now, bsmith23 said:

So would ToA be the only invocation they can get?

Are there any in the curriculum? If so, they can get those too, provided they buy them at those school ranks.

Yeah, so based on their fluff, Kaito are NOT shugenja. They cannot perform normal invocations to just any kami, but rather the kami have an affection for their bloodline, and naturally congregate to them and through their kyudo rituals then can kind of invite the kami into their body and arrows and have it take the effect of an invocation. This is represented by their school ability to have an invocation basically "fill" an arrow. Think of it as they basically make their body or bow into a shrine which the kami inhabits, as opposed to the normal method which requires one have the special gift to speak to and transact with the kami as a shugenja does.

Their curriculum gives access to several invocations, usually 1 or 2 every rank, but they tend to be specific because of their bloodlines association with certain kami. Even though they cannot buy other invocations, they can take the starting invocation and other invocations at their current rank because they are marked with the little ◆ symbol of privelaged access. You see this a lot with Shinobi-tagged schools, many of them cannot just buy up any ninjutsu, but at certain ranks they may be able to pick up the techniques because of this privelaged access.

Thank you pdf, for making this easy. Keep in mind, current RAW is that you lose privelaged access when you advance ranks, so if you want Kaito's limited invocations you need to pick them up while you can.

OK I think we get it now. Thanks

Yeah, I'm more surprised that they don't get access to Kihô...

Anyway, my other question: does it seem to you that there should be a limit to the number of arrows you can prepare this way? Does it count as a Prepared Invocation (so one active per shugenja)? If not, what's to stop a shrinekeeper walking around with a quiver full of magic arrows? Also, can you give them out to other archers, or does the magic only really work if you fire them yourself?

16 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

Even though they cannot buy other invocations, they can take the starting invocation and other invocations at their current rank because they are marked with the little ◆ symbol of privelaged access. You see this a lot with Shinobi-tagged schools, many of them cannot just buy up any ninjutsu, but at certain ranks they may be able to pick up the techniques because of this privelaged access.

Given the limited selection of ninjutsu, I think if any shinobi-tagged school had "shuji, ninjutsu, rituals" there would be a slight riot.

16 hours ago, bsmith23 said:

Were thinking shuji should be invocations

Every school has open access to Rituals, Shuji and one of Kata, Invocations or Kihô. Only one gets open access to Kihô (and thus is a true monk), so practically speaking, everyone else is either a Bushi or a Shugenja.

6 minutes ago, Lorne said:

Every school has open access to Rituals, Shuji and one of Kata, Invocations or Kihô. Only one gets open access to Kihô (and thus is a true monk), so practically speaking, everyone else is either a Bushi or a Shugenja.

Kuni lack access to Shuji but have Kata, Innvocations and Ritual access.

5 minutes ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

Kuni lack access to Shuji but have Kata, Innvocations and Ritual access.

D'oh! Missed that. OP, lol.

On 11/5/2018 at 6:01 AM, Hida Jitenno said:

Given the limited selection of ninjutsu, I think if any shinobi-tagged school had "shuji, ninjutsu, rituals" there would be a slight riot.

If I'm not mistaken, the Hiruma Scout, Shosuro Shinobi, and Soshi Illusionist have access to all the Ninjutsu techniques in the book, though all at different ranks. I do hope that as new books and techniques are released, they include some type of sidebar about swapping things in and out of the curricula. Of course, even if not, it will be much easier to manage than, say, the talent trees from Star Wars.

Emerald Empire has another school with limited Invocation access. The Fortunist Monk gets a single Invocation each rank.

2 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

If I'm not mistaken, the Hiruma Scout, Shosuro Shinobi, and Soshi Illusionist have access to all the Ninjutsu techniques in the book, though all at different ranks. I do hope that as new books and techniques are released, they include some type of sidebar about swapping things in and out of the curricula. Of course, even if not, it will be much easier to manage than, say, the talent trees from Star Wars.

Oh certainly, but my point was that it doesn't count as one of their three technique categories. If it did, and excluded Kata or Shuji from those schools, for example, that would leave some really underpowered schools/unhappy campers.

Ye, Ninjutsu is super limited right now. It's a very narrow chance it can happen, but if you roll that result on the heritage table which gives you a Rank 1 Ninjutsu or Maho it's basically just "free skulk" unless you happen to be playing a character who would be okay to or not realize they're using Maho (which also is gonna be rare because almost all the Maho right now are also like obviously evil). You don't even have a Rank 5 Ninjutsu technique yet.

2 minutes ago, UnitOmega said:

Ye, Ninjutsu is super limited right now. It's a very narrow chance it can happen, but if you roll that result on the heritage table which gives you a Rank 1 Ninjutsu or Maho it's basically just "free skulk" unless you happen to be playing a character who would be okay to or not realize they're using Maho (which also is gonna be rare because almost all the Maho right now are also like obviously evil). You don't even have a Rank 5 Ninjutsu technique yet.

Man, that entry is pure trash. Either you get a Maho (which sucks, because that auto-puts a prize on your head when you use it) or you need to invest in Skullduggery to make use of it.

Skulk doesn't require skulduggery. It does however, have very little use for someone with low air though as all the Ninjitsu are about Air.

3 hours ago, Ikiry0 said:

Skulk doesn't require skulduggery.

It does because you hide from one person that has equal or lower Vigilance than your Skulduggery. So the Technique only kicks off from Skulduggery 3+.

Whoops, I misremembered it. My bad!

9 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

It does because you hide from one person that has equal or lower Vigilance than your Skulduggery. So the Technique only kicks off from Skulduggery 3+.

Several NPC types have vigilance 2. One has a 1.

Vig 1: Manifest Earth Kami

Vig 2: Humble peasant, Trained Ashigaru, Desperate Bandit, Bushi skeleton, Shadolands Goblin, Sinister Oni, Zombie Peasant, Boar, Hawk, Pony, Unicorn Warhorse, Utaku Steed,

2 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

Several NPC types have vigilance 2. One has a 1.

Vig 1: Manifest Earth Kami

Vig 2: Humble peasant, Trained Ashigaru, Desperate Bandit, Bushi skeleton, Shadolands Goblin, Sinister Oni, Zombie Peasant, Boar, Hawk, Pony, Unicorn Warhorse, Utaku Steed,

Every time I read too fast I see Unicron warhorse...

Hiding from the Unicorn's horse is actually pretty important.